


What Comes Back

by jsnoopy



Category: NCT (Band), WAYV
Genre: Blood and Injury, M/M, Magic, Minor Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung/Suh Youngho | Johnny, Minor Lee Taeyong/Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul | Ten, Past Character Death, Romance, Slow Burn, Undead, Vampires, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-01-22 21:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21308608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jsnoopy/pseuds/jsnoopy
Summary: “He doesn’t have the plague,” Ten says behind his mask. He cuts a look to Jaehyun, eyes widening fractionally. “Do you?”The Black Death was a little before his time.---formerly titled "come close and touch me"
Relationships: Dong Si Cheng | WinWin/Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun
Comments: 42
Kudos: 97





	1. smell

**Author's Note:**

> one of the main players in this stage is dead from the very beginning, it's not a surprise, but will be discussed in detail! if this is uncomfortable for you, please do not read on
> 
> title is from dorianne laux's 'fast gas' bc i can't title to save my life

The worst part is the smell.

Jaehyun grew up in the close quarters of the industrialized downtown, so he was used to strange odors lurking around corners, the shadow of stench just vague enough to sneak up on you in the night. But this smell is different. His eyes sting. His stomach turns. His mouth clamps shut as his teeth grind against the sensation of the smell hitting the back of his throat.

“It’ll be over quick,” Sicheng had said.

The deft movement of Sicheng’s hands as he grabs for this ingredient and that, builds up the fire, stirs the pot, could possibly convince Jaehyun if it weren’t for that damned smell.

Jaehyun stands from the table crowded with herbs – sage, rosemary, lavender – and crosses the room to the window. He braces his hands on the windowsill, peering out into the dark, lamp-lit street.

It feels like he had been wandering for years, although he knows it had only been a few days. Solitude makes time stretch. Every time he’d approached someone on the street they’d covered their mouth with their hands, hurried away.

That damned smell.

Everything is busier than he remembered it. Metal beasts of automobiles ten times his size roared down smooth black highways, sent the wind whipping into his eyes, making his skin sting as if he’d been slapped. His head ached from eye strain in the bright sunlight after so long in the dark. Nothing made sense.

Then he’d come here, alone, afraid, trembling in the doorway. Ten had gotten one good look at him before the smell hit. He’d tried not to notice, Jaehyun could tell, but one corner of his lips twitched downward as his eyes squinted up. 

Sicheng’s words were short and strained, and Jaehyun knew he was holding his breath even as he invited him inside.

“Don’t take it personally.” 

Jaehyun turns his head to look over his shoulder as Ten enters the room again, carrying an armful of candles in various shapes, sizes, and colors. 

Ten sets a wide-mouthed red one in frosted glass on the table first, right on top a little paper pack of fennel seed and a few stray juniper berries. The other candles follow, placed all over the table and over the spare counter space, tucked behind dirty dishes beside the sink. 

He still hasn’t explained when he meant, but Jaehyun’s content to wait. Speaking himself to ask is an uncertainty — his throat feels dry and sore, and his tongue heavy. 

“He’s not very talkative is he?” Ten asks, clucking his tongue. It takes a moment for Jaehyun to register that he means Sicheng, who doesn’t react at all to the dig. 

Jaehyun remains quiet, his whole body tense as Ten approaches him, touches his elbow gently with a few fingertips. The lithe man’s chest freezes as he holds his breath, this close to him. 

Jaehyun startles as Sicheng appears behind Ten, reaching around him to hook a black cloth face mask over Ten’s ears. It covers Ten’s mouth and nose, but he splutters, quiet spitting sounds muffled by the mask.

Jaehyun meets Sicheng’s eyes over Ten’s shoulder. The witch’s gaze reflects nothing back to him, leaves him just as lost -- Sicheng looks away first, returns to the stove.

Ten pinches the mask between two fingers, pulling it away from his mouth slightly. “What did you put in here?”

Sicheng nods to the table, to the variety of herbs and plants.

Ten slips away to the other side of the room when his eyes start to water from standing beside Jaehyun for too long. Jaehyun’s chest constricts at the loss of contact.

“He doesn’t have the plague,” Ten says behind his mask. He cuts a look to Jaehyun, eyes widening fractionally. “Do you?”

The Black Death was a little before his time. 

Jaehyun shakes his head, but it seems to be unnecessary. Ten has already returned to his candles, flitting around the room lighting them. Despite his initial protest to the mask, Jaehyun notices that he leaves it on.

“He’s just frustrated. He doesn’t know what to do,” Ten continues, picking up where he’d left off before Sicheng’s interruption as he steps onto one of the mismatched chairs, then onto the table. His socked feet squish a sprig of lavender. “He’s helped others like you before, but they were all much less...dead.”

The nimble man reaches up to the ceiling lamp and the ominous flickering of the dim yellow light ceases as the room becomes dark. Jaehyun freezes at the loud bang that follows, but as a new lightbulb was screwed into place and his vision restores, he sees it had only been Sicheng slapping his palm down onto the clean white stove. 

The man stands with his body tilted in the direction of the table again, his eyes hot. With his free hand, Sicheng dabs a kitchen towel to his forehead, wiping away the sweat beading at his hairline. His loose white shirt contours to his back in a dark wet spot that grows as Jaehyun watches. 

“You’re supposed to turn the light off first!” Sicheng snaps. You could get electrocuted!”

“I did turn it off,” Ten says. “I took the bulb out.”

Jaehyun looks around the room in this new light. The herbs tossed on the table are brighter, the pot whispering steam on the stove much more like that of a harmless old magic woman’s than the peculiar man with the bleached blond hair standing in front of it. 

Sicheng grinds his teeth together, the muscles in his jaw working. 

No, this witch is not like his great-grandmother at all.

Her long black hair used to brush just below her shoulders when she didn’t have it tied up with ribbon and twine. Jaehyun recalled brushing it for her before bed. Some locks were always shorter than others from the darker requests she fulfilled for clients, leaving the underside of her hair in jagged layers. 

He always took the time to tuck them into other strands when he braided it back from her face, slipping his fingers through the spaces. He hadn’t yet decided if she would adore her great-grandson’s dyed, messy cut or would be disappointed. Jaehyun wonders if he could still do the kind of magic she reluctantly relented to, with hair like that.

“Sit with me,” Ten says as he climbs off of the table. His toes meet the wood laminate floor first, and he twirls on them and falls into his seat in one fluid movement.

Jaehyun obliges, shuffling over the same floor in a quick jerk. Outside, sirens wail. He looks back toward the window, alarmed, but Ten shushes the offending noise away.

“Sit. There, sit, there you go,” Ten says as he sinks into the chair beside him. Ten brings one leg up, resting his heel on the edge of the chair, his knee pressing into the corner of the table, and looks at Jaehyun.

“My name is Ten,” he says, although he’d said it before. His voice is more kind than anything Jaehyun has heard in a long time, possibly ever. “What’s yours?”

Jaehyun hesitates. 

He licks his dry lips, his gaze darting between Ten and Sicheng, who remains fixated on the pot on the stove, despite the telling tilt of his head toward them. He’s listening. 

But that isn’t the problem. Jaehyun doesn’t know if he can speak.

When he doesn’t reply, Ten exhales heavily, but his eyes don’t lose the gentleness in them. Jaehyun’s grateful for that. 

“You must have been pretty scared, huh?” Ten murmurs. “It’s okay if you don’t want to talk now. But it’d be helpful if we knew what happened, you know, so maybe Sicheng can help you better?”

Jaehyun opens his lips briefly, pondering a response, but the smell of himself invades his mouth, and he snaps it shut again. He glances between them again, fire licking his skin as heat rises to his cheeks. He lifts on hand, brushes his fingers over the collar of his shirt.

But Ten doesn’t see it. The man raises his eyebrows, waiting for some response that shows Jaehyun understands him. 

It’s a fair assumption of them, to speak in English to him, but he wishes he could let them know it’s easier to catch on when they’re whispering in hushed Korean, though he loses a few words when they switch back and forth into another language he doesn’t know. 

He doesn’t want to show him, but maybe it will help Ten understand. 

Jaehyun presses the top button of his shirt through the hole, pulling the collar to the side so Ten can see the scar that runs over the base of his throat. It’s the last thing he remembers. The edges are jagged, a quick stitching job from the mortician, he assumes. How he healed, even in death, in his coffin, he doesn’t understand.

Although Ten’s face remains mostly hidden by the mask, his eyes twitch open a little wider. Jaehyun buttons his collar again as quick as he can, fingers fumbling over the small, old button. 

“Okay,” Ten says. His voice is so soft that it becomes a jagged edge, drawing a sting to Jaehyun’s eyes that have nothing to do with his personal odor. 

Jaehyun has to look away. He stares down at his muddy shoes and wishes he wasn’t there.

“It must’ve taken a while for you to get here, huh?” Ten says. “You must be tired. Let’s get you set up on the couch.”

Jaehyun nods silently, feeling like a child being lead by a guardian -- useless, unable to take care of himself, but maybe it isn’t so bad, letting someone else take the reins. Finding them was hard enough, and he’s ready to rest, whatever that means for him in his current state of being.

He follows Ten to the living room, only looking back to Sicheng once. When he meets the witch’s eyes, he’s not sure what he sees there. He hopes it’s nothing that will hurt, but he’s met many witches before, and he knows how this ends. If Sicheng is anything like the witch who cursed him, it will definitely hurt.

  
  


Three years ago, Sicheng moved to the city to escape all the weird shit that accompanied being a small town suburb witch. 

When his neighbors weren’t whispering about him they were asking him to help their kids pass their SATs. The local covens were always obsessed with going out into the woods and communing with fae. If one more teenager with a moon emoji in her bio requested him on Twitter he’d crack. 

So he got away.

Two hours into his arrival at Johnny and Doyoung’s apartment in NYC, Sicheng met Ten. He then resigned himself to the fact that weird shit was apparently going to follow him wherever he went, but at least this weird was a little more interesting. 

Whole  _ months _ would go by between dealing with vacationing vampires and those bratty wolf teens from down the street showing up on his doorstep asking to suck his ex-boyfriend/roommate’s blood or if he could buy them cigarettes, respectively.

So when the undead arrived on his stoop, Sicheng was justifiably shaken.

It had taken a few hours for him to successfully brew something that could mask the stench, but the house no longer smelled like something  _ very _ dead. The lingering scent of rotten fruit remained, or perhaps milk that had gone bad.

Whatever the case, his nose had begun growing used to it. He isn’t especially fond of this, but he isn’t especially fond of a dead man lurking around his home either. 

Ten has other thoughts. 

“He’s got kind of a puppy dog look, doesn’t he?” Ten hums as he folds the towels straight from the dryer.

Sicheng leans on the top of the washing machine, resting on his forearms as he peers through the crack in the bi-fold door. From this angle, he can see the strange, undead man standing in the middle of the living room, staring at the television. A local newscaster’s voice reaches Sicheng’s ears through the doors, so it makes sense that their visitor would be able to hear them too.

He closes the door before turning to his roommate again. “Ten. He’s dead. You can’t think he’s cute.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Ten says. He stacks the folded towels before pushing them into Sicheng’s arms. “Make yourself useful. I’m gonna find him some pajamas.”

_ Pajamas _ . Sicheng’s life feels like the Twilight Zone. 

“He’s  _ dead _ dead, Ten. Not immortal dead. Zombie dead,” he presses.

“Oh,” Ten says. He lowers his voice, keeping his words down to a whisper. “Do you think he’s going to try to eat us when we go to bed? Do you have a muzzle or something?”

“Why the fuck would I have a muzzle?” Sicheng hisses out.

“Well, I don’t know what you’re into anymore!” Ten whispers back.

Sicheng’s never put a curse on anyone before, but Ten is the one person he would consider hexing.

Ten takes his carefully controlled silence as an admission of guilt and pats his shoulder endearingly, offering him the signature  _ of course I’m right  _ Ten smile. “I think he’s more your size than mine, so I’ll grab a pair of your sweats and we can ask Johnny for some old clothes tomorrow.”

Sicheng wants to protest, firstly because he doesn’t want a dead person wearing his clothes (he’ll definitely have to burn them), and secondly because Ten’s taking this nurturing thing way too far and he knows him well enough to figure that they’ll be signing joint adoption papers on this corpse in their living room soon enough. 

But he can’t quite manage it, because now he’s reminded that he’ll have to tell Johnny, and asking Johnny for help is something he tries to avoid as much as possible. In this case, however, it’s inevitable. 

It’s unsurprising when Johnny answers the phone, despite it being four-thirty in the morning, because Johnny is somehow always awake. Doyoung’s nocturnal lifestyle is rubbing off on him. 

“Is Ten missing again?” The older man asks by way of greeting.

Sicheng chews on his lip, leaning back against the kitchen counter. It’s the only other room downstairs with a vantage point of the living room without being  _ in the living room _ . He can only see the back of their guest’s head, but it soothes him just enough. 

Ten says he has control problems. He would prefer to think that he’s a perfectionist. There’s nothing perfect about the walking dead tearing up their skillfully decorated brownstone.

“No, I tucked him in about twenty minutes ago,” Sicheng murmurs, “went down without too much of a fight.”

“At least he isn’t still colicky,” Johnny says. “What’s up?”

“Are you free to babysit tomorrow?”

“Babysit what?”

“Who,” Sicheng corrects. “We have a...situation. But I can’t take any more sick days.”

“Ah, just another drone,” Johnny sighs, “another cog in the machine-”

“Please stop,” Sicheng says before Johnny has a chance to take another breath and continue his very best impression of Doyoung, “you literally own your own business, you can’t lecture me on the pitfalls of capitalism.”

“Well,” Johnny says. He sounds a little hurt. It won’t do.

“If you help me out, I’ll make you something,” Sicheng says, “anything, your wish is my command and all that.”

“Anything?”

It’s a dangerous bargain. Johnny and Sicheng rely on each other for the skill set the other lacks, and that’s part of the reason the older man makes Sicheng so nervous. 

But he wants a vacation, and he’ll make all the love potions Johnny wants if it means he doesn’t have to call in. The usage of love potions in specialty coffees around Valentine’s Day is totally unethical, but if there’s anything Sicheng has learned from spending time with the youth of New York, it’s that no consumption is truly ethical. He’ll still find a way to sleep at night.

  
  


He’s two seconds away from leaving the dead man to do his worst as he runs out the door when Johnny finally shows his face, shaking his wet hair out like a dog just inside the front door. Sicheng can’t be bothered to grab a towel for the water dripping from the edge of Johnny’s coat onto their nice, hardwood floors. If he waits much longer he’ll definitely be late.

“Holy fuck,” Johnny says first, “what’s that smell?”

Sicheng grants him one withering look as he tugs his knit hat over his hair and tucks his keys into his coat. He  _ does not _ want to get into it.

Johnny catches him by the elbow before he can flee. “What do I feed him?”

Sicheng hopes he can escape before Ten can come downstairs and bring up  _ brains _ . “He doesn’t eat, it’s fine.”

“Oh,” Johnny says, “just like an easier dog, then. No walking required either?”

“Bye, Johnny!” Sicheng calls over his shoulder as he slips out the door. The first inhale of fresh air makes him dizzy, and he breathes in and out heavily to clear his nostrils of the stench that he’d tragically grown almost used to overnight. He nearly falls on his face as he hurries down the steps, torn between his worry about being late and the idea of coming home to find his roommate and associate torn to shreds by the undead stranger who has taken up residence in his once clean, entirely un-smelly home.

  
  


Work is stressful enough to make Sicheng forget about his newfound responsibility until he drags himself up to his front door again. The sun has long since set and the chill of the night creeps over Sicheng’s skin as he stands there, his key poised to enter the lock, not quite able to make the move to enter the house just yet. 

There are few things Sicheng enjoys more than the end of the day when he can go home and decompress in his own, comforting space. Not knowing what waits for him behind the door is a new feeling. Even Ten has become predictable after two years of living together. 

Maybe he can just run away, leave everything behind again, and start over somewhere else. But the dead have found him once already, and he’s still unsure how that happened. If he doesn’t figure it out, it may just happen again.

The door opens before he can make up his mind.

Johnny smiles down at him knowingly -- and of course, he might really know what’s going on in Sicheng’s head. He’s always had a connection with the future, and Sicheng’s unsure if the cards are even necessary for the man at this point. 

“Welcome home,” Johnny hums. 

He ushers Sicheng in from the cold, closing the door behind him. Sicheng watches the street disappear from his view with a pang of longing. He definitely missed his chance to bolt. Johnny’s a brick wall between him and the possibility of escape. 

That  _ smell _ takes its opportunity to invade his nostrils again and it’s worse than before -- he’ll have to whip up something else that’ll last longer this time. Johnny’s talking, but Sicheng’s thoughts continue whirling in his head. It takes a moment, but Sicheng manages to tune in as he takes his shoes off, giving in to his own arrival.

“He’s been chowing down on fries since they got delivered, man, so don’t worry about dinner.”

Sicheng blinks, looking up at Johnny again. “What?”

“Yeah, dude, did you even ask if he was hungry? Even the dead have cravings. His are cheesy fries.”

That’s...the dead shouldn’t be able to eat, right? Any sign of hunger or craving from the man would have lit a warning bell in Sicheng’s head, but maybe he doesn’t know as much as he thought about the dead coming back to life. 

The warm flush that creeps up Sicheng’s neck to his cheeks feels a lot like shame, but he’ll pretend it’s just a result of the re-introduction to central heating as he entered the house.

“Well. Noted,” he manages after a moment. “Is Ten home?”

“Not yet,” Johnny says. Sicheng realizes with rising nerves that the other witch is pulling his coat on again. 

“You’re leaving?”

“Yeah, gotta get home to my own undead,” Johnny says. “You good alone with Jaehyun?”

_ Who? _

Sicheng blinks at him again. His mental processing time is extraordinarily slow some days. 

“Oh,” Sicheng says finally.

Johnny smiles like nothing’s wrong, but he narrows his eyes in that way that makes Sicheng’s face burn hotter.  _ Definite shame _ . “I asked him to write his name.”

“I didn’t know if he knew how to write,” Sicheng says, although he hadn’t actually thought of it at all. 

Johnny hums and slips his shoes on. “You’ll be fine, man. But let me know if you need anything.”

“Yeah, actually,” Sicheng says quickly before he can go, “do you know anything about...the whole situation?”

“Specific,” Johnny remarks. “But no, sorry. You know this isn’t really my realm of expertise.”

Right. It was all him, then. “Thanks anyway,” Sicheng says, watching him open the door again. “How’s the future looking?”

Johnny grins. “The outlook is...rainy. Night, Sicheng.”

Sicheng watches him pull the door shut. The hall echoes with silence, the finality of it a heavy weight on Sicheng’s shoulders. He’s alone now, with the dead man.

_ Jaehyun _ . 

The shuffle of feet across the floor behind him alerts Sicheng to the man’s presence. He turns.

Their guest stands there, framed by the glow of the living room light. 

When Sicheng’s eyes adjust the first thing he notices is how the hem of his sweatpants is just an inch too short on the man, rising over his ankles, although his skin stays concealed with the thick red socks Ten dug out for him from his mess of a closet. 

The bag Johnny brought with him must have had some old clothes since he definitely recognizes the dark turtleneck sweater from Johnny’s beatnik phase last fall.

“Hey,” Sicheng says.

Jaehyun nods near imperceptibly. He twists his fingers into the hem of the turtleneck, rolling the fabric over them to cover his bare skin. 

Sicheng glances between his hands and his face, masked by shadow. “Are you cold?”

He nods once more -- alright, then. 

“Do you want...some tea?” Sicheng offers hesitantly.

Another nod. Sicheng supposes this is his preferred mode of communication, but it couldn’t be that hard to phrase everything as a yes or no question, right?

He ponders on this as he sets the kettle on the stove, picking up a few stray lavender blossoms from the counter and collecting them in his cupped palm as he waits for the water to heat up. 

One of Sicheng’s worst habits is how lost in his own mind he can get, whether he’s simply daydreaming or mentally working out the issues with a tricky elixir. It’s how he can be so startled when Jaehyun approaches him from behind, the stench the only warning he can get before the man touches his shoulder.

Sicheng holds his breath, his eyes stinging from their proximity. He waits expectantly, lips pressed firmly together to fend off the assault on his senses, but fights to keep his eyes on Jaehyun, the dead man’s expression holding his gaze.

Jaehyun, to his credit, looks apologetic, something dark and sorry in his eyes. He raises one hand slowly, covering his own nose and mouth with it.

Sicheng doesn’t understand. He tilts his head, his brows coming together, the skin between them crinkling into two lines as he attempts to find the answer to Jaehyun’s mime.

Jaehyun’s expression only grows more sorrowful as the seconds drift by. He drops his hand again, only to press his fingers into Sicheng’s palm.

Sicheng twitches backward half a step, knocking his hip into the stove, sending the kettle rattling on the range. 

Jaehyun’s hand is warm, but then it’s gone again.

Jaehyun pinches the lavender blossoms between his thumb and index finger, holding it up to his nose before covering both with his other hand again. His eyes search Sicheng’s.

“Oh,” Sicheng breathes out. The air is heavy and rancid on his tongue. “Can you smell it, too?”

He doesn’t wait for Jaehyun’s answer, stepping quickly away to grab for a mask like the one he’d fixed on himself and Ten the night before. When he finds one, he stuffs it with the best smelling herbs and flowers laid out on the table. It’s not like Jaehyun opens his mouth to speak, and he’d need more than either of them.

He falls quiet again as he approaches Jaehyun again, biting hard on the inside of his lip. He holds the mask up so nothing falls out, and hooks it carefully over his ears. 

Warmth radiates from everywhere on Jaehyun. Although the rest of the kitchen is chilly, Sicheng doesn’t linger, stepping back again as soon as his work is finished. 

He watches Jaehyun adjust the mask, watches as his shoulders relax, slumping down.

No wonder he hadn’t sought food out from them the night before. Who could be hungry with a smell like that? When  _ smelling _ like that?

“Better?” Sicheng asks.

Jaehyun’s eyes crinkle in the way that tells Sicheng he’s trying his best to smile. He wonders briefly what that must look like.

“I’m trying to fix it,” Sicheng says. He’s not sure what he means exactly -- fixing the smell or fixing the man? Both require more information than he currently possesses. 

Ten’s arrival home saves Jaehyun from an answer (or another nod). The door slams against the wall as Ten throws it open, calling out to Sicheng to check where he is.

Sicheng sighs a little, returning to the stove to finish his initial task of making tea. He flicks the stove off as the kettle whistles. 

He really is trying. The only problem -- he doesn’t know where to start.


	2. II. sight

"We should go apple picking."

The suggestion pulls Sicheng out of his work. He looks at Ten across their table at  _ Nectar.  _ Johnny’s coffee shop always has a line, but only a few people linger at the tables or the plush cushioned couches by the windows which are charmed to stay clean and fresh no matter how many drinks are sloshed onto the fabric covers.

There’s a little candle in the middle of the table Sicheng and Ten sit at, caged by a sculpture that’s certainly a result of Doyoung’s passing hobbies – it’s ugly, is what Sicheng thinks, which means Johnny adores it because Johnny is just disgustingly enamored like that. Couldn’t be him, Sicheng thinks.

Light from the carved stars in the sculpture dance over Ten’s jaw as he grins at Sicheng.

Sicheng sighs, fully aware that the other man isn’t going to let go of this idea. "Is it the best time for apple picking?"

"It's Fall," Ten says, "that's the only time."

He shouldn't have to say it. He really shouldn't have to remind Ten of Jaehyun's existence. That's probably what Ten's pushing him to do, too, just to get under his skin.

Sicheng takes a breath, opening his mouth to remind him that they can’t drive upstate when they’re living with a zombie, but he can’t quite make the argument, not when they’ve brought said zombie to a trendy coffee shop with them.

Jaehyun stands behind the counter with Johnny, watching with interest as Johnny scalds milk. 

Loud noises don’t seem to bother him as much as they did when he joined them a week ago – he doesn’t jump anymore at the sound of the doorbell when their dinner is delivered, or whip his head around when cars lay on their horns – so the loud whirring of the machine doesn't faze him either. Sicheng eyes him – the dark turtleneck tucked up to his chin, another hand-me-down from Johnny, the mask that remains over his face. 

Before they left the house, Ten tucked charmed pouches into the dead man’s pockets that let off a pleasant floral bloom whenever someone passed by or stepped in too close. None of them were in favor of taking the rotten stench with them into public, no matter how much Johnny insisted he didn’t mind.

“The coffee beans I use are very fragrant,” Johnny had said.

“Please shut up,” Sicheng had answered. He had known he wouldn’t – Johnny loves talking about his beans – so Sicheng promptly ended the call.

“Let’s focus on one thing at a time,” Sicheng says instead of pointing out the obvious. “I’ll fix our problem and then we can go apple picking.”

Ten chews on the offer for a full thirty seconds ( _ an impressive amount of thought for him, _ Sicheng muses) before shaking his head.

“No deal, honey, there’s no time like the present. Besides, our problem would probably love apple picking!”

Sicheng scoffs. “You sound like Taeyong.”

Sicheng has known Ten for four insufferably long and beautiful years. Both men are, admittedly, hard to get to know. Sicheng’s been told often how high his walls stand, while Ten’s jarring personality turns more people away than ushers them in. 

But the past four years (and rapidly fluctuating status of their relationship) has granted Sicheng the ability to read Ten better than most. Better even than Johnny, who sees the answers to everything in the coffee grounds of his morning French press.

The mention of Taeyong’s name makes Ten’s nose twitch before he looks away, suddenly interested in the paper tag hanging off his tea bag.

“Please,” Sicheng murmurs, “just ask him out.”

“Oh, don’t be so jealous,” Ten says, as if Sicheng is even remotely envious.

There’s no bell over the door to chime when Doyoung sweeps into the cafe, but there’s a ringing in Sicheng’s ears all the same -- he likes to think its his heightened sense to the supernatural, but it’s more likely that Doyoung’s presence would set off anyone’s mental alarms. It took Ten ages to suppress his instinct to bolt. (Surprisingly, the most surprising thing about Ten, is that he is  _ not _ interested in vampires. Too many close calls.)

“Babe!” Johnny cheers, standing up straighter behind the counter.

A few customers glance up from their laptops and lattes at the loud interruption, but regulars are too familiar with Johnny’s abiding love for his partner and returned to their work easily. 

Johnny takes a step closer to Doyoung, starting to reach over with both arms, maybe pull him into a hug despite the counter that separates them, but Doyoung raises a hand in the air in front of his chest, and the look in his eyes leaves no argument.

“I told you not to come near me until you dealt with that rat, John.”

“Johnny couldn’t kill a fly,” Ten pipes up. 

“You can’t help yourself, can you?” Sicheng asks.

Doyoung’s gaze slides onto them, followed by the chill that always accompanies his attention, no matter how kind it can be. Sicheng rubs his hands over each other, willing away the goosebumps littering his arms.

“I’m not asking him to kill a fly, I told him to evict a rat,” Doyoung huffs.

“Babe, c’mon,” Johnny says, “I can’t just tell him to go.”

“Rat?” Ten asks. Sicheng wonders if there’s anything he hasn’t stuck his nose in.

“The demon college student taking up residence in our living room and eating us out of house and home.”

“Babe,” Johnny says again. It’s always so sad to hear Johnny beg.

Sicheng might think Doyoung’s exaggerating, since he tends toward the theatrical, leaning heavily into stereotype. But Johnny’s family is pretty interesting, and Sicheng’s met a few of his cousins. He wouldn’t be surprised if one had demon blood.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Doyoung says, whipping his coat off. It flutters in the air for a moment before hanging obediently over the back of a chair. “Make me a latte.”

“Of course, babe.”

Johnny brings Sicheng a refill on his drink after satisfying his partner’s demands.

“I didn’t order this,” Sicheng points out. “I’m not paying for it.”

Johnny waves his hands dismissively, pulls another chair over to sit with them. “I’ve been thinking.”

“Yikes,” Ten says.

“You should see Kun.”

“Double yikes.”

Sicheng feels his face pull into an expression he usually reserves for magic council meetings. This is supposed to be his safe space. “That conservative stick-in-the-mud?”

Johnny rolls his eyes. “He knows a lot more about this shit than I do. Or you, apparently. He’s traditional, but maybe that’ll be good.”

He knows he’s right, and that’s what’s so frustrating about it. Asking for help from Kun is admitting defeat. It’s a blow to Sicheng’s pride that’ll be hard to swallow in the kind of face of the mage.

“He’s going to turn it into some lesson about how witches are stronger together and a coven is essential to magical learning--” Sicheng stops to exhale heavily, clearing his mind of his own self-doubt. He doesn’t want to hear Johnny say it. He’ll say it himself. “Maybe he’s right.”

“Ah,” Johnny says. He shakes his head and wags his finger in the air. “Ah, ah, no. The dead and resurrected are complicated subjects. You’re only...twenty-five, twenty-six? Kun’s almost seventy. He’s just going to know more than you about this, no matter his values. His expertise is a given.”

“_Kun’s_ _seventy?” _Ten interjects. Sicheng resists the urge to smack his gaping mouth. “He’s so hot, there’s no way.”

“Hey,” Johnny says, “old is sexy.”

Sicheng didn’t care how many centuries Doyoung has under his belt. He shudders at the thought.

“How old do you think Jaehyun is?” Ten asks.

Huh. He hasn’t considered it much. He’s only thought  _ Jaehyun’s dead _ and left the train there, but he knows plenty of dead folk. Doyoung, technically, for one. 

Apparently he’s the only one who hasn’t pondered over it. “He can’t be older than early twenties,” Johnny answers. “His skin’s flawless, not even any wrinkles.”

“Embalming fluid?” Ten suggests.

“I don’t know, what did they use for embalming in…” Johnny trails off, unsure. 

“Hasn’t he said where he’s from?” Sicheng asks.

Johnny shrugs. “Not when.”

Huh.

The squeak of marker across whiteboard breaks their conversation. Sicheng twists in his seat, finds Jaehyun there behind him. The man glances up to meet his gaze, and there may be a hint of a smile across his face, but it’s gone before Sicheng can tell and in any case his attention is drawn to the board as the man holds it up for them.

_ 26 _

“Aw, when’s your birthday, Jae?” Ten coos, not ashamed at all at being caught talking about the man as if he isn’t in the room.

_ February _

“You’re the same age as Sicheng,” Ten says. He sounds smug about it like that’s supposed to prove something. It’s stupid.

Sicheng can’t look back at Jaehyun now and that’s even stupider.

  
  


He knows it’s going to be a bad day from the moment he wakes up.

His alarm is labelled with a reminder to meet Kun after lunch, which only makes the sun that much more obnoxiously bright and his eyelids that much more heavy and dry with sleep. Eventually his full bladder forces him out of bed, and he moves with sleep heavy limbs to the kitchen to see if Ten’s started the coffee yet.

He finds him there, looking guilty but rushed.

“Hi, I don’t have time to chat, woke up late,” Ten explains, pouring coffee into his favorite thermos.

“Do you have work today?”

Ten nods, not quite meeting his eyes.

“What are you doing with Jaehyun?” Sicheng asks, watching Ten dart around the kitchen.

Ten pops his bagel out of the toaster early, it’s barely even browned, and sticks his index finger in the cream cheese to scoop it out and onto one side. Sucking the remainder off his finger, Ten all but throws his laptop into his bag. “I’m not doing anything with him, I’m busy today.”

Sicheng blinks at him. “Well, Johnny can’t come over today.”

“So, drop him off at Nectar or something? I don’t know, take him with you?”

With him?  _ Out?  _ Sicheng has to work a half day before meeting with Kun, what is he supposed to do?

“I—”

“Don’t start,” Ten says, slinging his bag over his shoulder as he passes him. He’s already making for the door and Sicheng is running out of time to stop him before he escapes. “He’s yours, too, we have to share the beautiful weight that is raising the newly undead. Can we call him our newborn? Saying I have a newborn at home would be a perfect way to get people to cover my shifts.”

“I think that’s reserved for the vampires,” Sicheng hears himself say. He can’t even make an argument, too caught up on his own need to correct everything Ten says.  _ Idiot. _

Ten smiles. “I know. Have a good day!”

Then he’s gone.

Sicheng stares at the door until it hits him that he only has a few minutes to finish getting ready and leave himself.

He rushes back to his room to finish getting dressed and, with a frown,

“Alright, you’re with me today,” Sicheng sighs. 

He doesn’t bother checking to see if Jaehyun follows him, which is embarrassingly regrets just a minute later when the dead man still hasn’t emerged from the living room. He’s just about to turn and grab him to drag him out of the house when he hears the careful, muted footfalls as Jaehyun steps off the rug and onto the wooden floors of the hallway.

Sicheng suppresses a smile, turning to offer him one of his extra coats.

Jaehyun just looks at him, expression unreadable.

“It’s cold out,” Sicheng says.

Still, he stares. 

With a heavy sigh, Sicheng carries it to him. He circles his hand around Jaehyun’s wrist to lift his arm, starting to put his coat on for him. It’s a little too big, Johnny’s arms are too long, and the bottom hem brushes Jaehyun’s ankles. It’ll do, though. 

He looks kind of cute in something too big for him, when he stands as such a looming presence in the back of Sicheng’s mind.

_ Cute?  _ Better to pack that one up and stuff it somewhere deep.

There’s a hip, cozy record shop next door to where Sicheng works. He’s only been in to browse a few times, and never stayed for long, but was certainly taken by the plush and lovingly worn armchairs in the back, nestled next to stereos with big headphones. The windows are always covered with layers of flyers promoting shows and guitar lessons.

At first, Sicheng almost walks right by it. When he stops, Jaehyun stops, too.

“Do you like music?” Sicheng asks.

Jaehyun doesn’t answer, but Sicheng never expected him to.

The shop is run by a non-magic user, but Sicheng knows him pretty well from his taking in of a young faerie who was causing havoc for the council.

It takes a brave person to adopt a kid with magic in them, even more so a teenage faerie. What’s one more ward?

Sicheng bustles Jaehyun into the shop. The man follows his nudging without protest.

“Good morning, Taeil,” Sicheng greets kindly as they enter.

The man behind the counter looks around the customer in front of him and waves, gesturing for Sicheng to wait a moment.

Sicheng rocks back and forth on his feet, checking his watch as he waits for the person to check out. Who comes to a record store so early in the morning? Are the deals that impressive?

He stills as he feels the weight of a hand on his wrist, and looks down to find Jaehyun’s fingertips pressed against the exposed skin between his gloves and the sleeve of his coat.

He looks up and finds Jaehyun looking at him already. His eyes look warm. Sicheng blinks against their pull, against the urge to lean into Jaehyun’s side to see if the rest of him contains that same warmth.

When the customer passes them, they gasp a little, covering their nose with one hand.

Right. The smell. How has Sicheng gotten so used to it?

“What can I do for you this morning?” Taeil asks, smiling at them both. “Looking for anything?”

Sicheng has got to snap out of it. He steps away from Jaehyun, offering Taeil a smile in return as he crosses the distance to the register. “Oh, thank you, but no. Actually, I’m in a hurry, but my…friend is new to the neighborhood. I, um. I wondered, if it isn’t too much to ask, if it’s alright that he hang out here for a while?”

“Sure,” Taeil says. He relaxes his shoulders and exhales, and it’s then that Sicheng notices how tense he was. “Wow, I thought Donghyuck had done something again.”

“Oh. No. They’d send someone much scarier than me.”

For some reason that doesn’t reassure him. Sicheng ushers Jaehyun toward the back of the store, away from Taeil’s growing frown, before the man can change his mind.

“I’ll be back in a few hours,” Sicheng says, pushing Jaehyun into a chair – it doesn’t take much to convince him to sit, and then he’s looking up at Sicheng with those warm, glossy eyes, and it’s a few seconds before Sicheng can collect his thoughts again. “Just a few hours, um. Don’t leave, okay? Taeil’s nice. If you need anything, you can just…write it out for him. Okay?”

Jaehyun nods, still just looking up at him, like Sicheng’s instructions are the most important words in the world.

“Okay,” Sicheng says again. “See you later, then.”

He leaves without looking back, already late, but he knows Jaehyun watches him all the way out of the store. Call it a witch’s intuition.

When he returns, the first thing he notices is Jaehyun hunched over the counter in close conversation with Taeil’s ward, Donghyuck. The telling squeak of Jaehyun’s marker cuts into the quiet spaces between songs as the stereo plays a mix of low R&B.

Donghyuck’s eyes flit over whatever Jaehyun’s written before he laughs and stands up straight, pushing his hair back from his forehead. His ears come to wispy points under his floppy hair, exposed only when he pulls it back, and even then his magical nature makes it near impossible for non-magic people to spot him. His eyes are always sparkling in the way Sicheng imagines faerie dust is supposed to. Even when they slide over to Sicheng standing in the doorway.

How embarrassing, being caught staring.

Donghyuck waves to him. Jaehyun looks over his shoulder and waves as well.

“Come to collect?” Donghyuck asks.

“How’s school?” Sicheng asks. “Are you behaving?”

Donghyuck jabs his finger toward a stack of records on the counter. Beside them, a shiny, expensive looking record player sits, waiting. Sicheng knows what it’s waiting for -- his credit card.

“What are all these?”

“Jaehyun picked them out,” Donghyuck says, “and he needs something to play them on, right?”

“So many?” Sicheng mumbles.

He doesn’t mean for Jaehyun to hear, not really, but the guilt feels just as heavy when Jaehyun picks up the stack from the counter, stepping back as if to put them all back. Sicheng grabs onto his elbow, holds him in place.

“We’ll take them,” Sicheng says. His card is in his hand before he fully realizes he’s gotten it out, passing it over to Donghyuck who takes it with a smile a lot like Ten’s. 

Jaehyun’s ears flush a pleasant pink as he accepts the bags Donghyuck holds out to him a moment later. Sicheng tries not to stare.

Kun’s shop is empty. It wouldn’t be, ordinarily, but the sign on the door is flipped to  _ Closed _ when they arrive. Sicheng suspects it has to do with their meeting.

Aside from the frustration of having to ask for help at all, it’s unnerving how sweet Kun can be, even after all their disagreements.

Sicheng hasn’t been in New York very long, just long enough to make life a little more difficult for the older witch, whose insistence on traditional apprenticeships and coven membership only ever serves to make Sicheng’s eyes roll.

He doesn’t need the  _ family _ Kun argues would make him stronger, keep him grounded. His own blood family disappeared from his life a long time ago -- why should he be tied to anyone else?

His relationship with Johnny is built on their similar ways of thinking. Johnny gave up his own apprenticeship two weeks after he met Doyoung, crossing the country to stay with him. He’s still dedicated to his craft, but magic isn’t everything.

Not until you need it.

Sicheng’s nervous to leave Jaehyun alone while he meets with Kun. It’s not a nervousness he’s felt before about the man, where he wants him to be safe and not just simple. 

“The boys won’t mind looking after him,” Kun offers.

It’s definitely tempting. While Sicheng wasn’t interested in an apprenticeship himself, the young witches under Kun’s wing have some skill, even though they don’t seem like the most serious or responsible of teenagers.

Kun nods over Sicheng’s shoulder and he follows the older man’s gaze. Across the shop, Kunhang had tucked himself under Jaehyun’s arm, guiding him through the various plants that crowd one-half of the pseudo-apothecary. Behind them, Yangyang has collected a handful of sweet-smelling flowers and began weaving them into a rope to wrap around Jaehyun’s wrist.

A closed-lipped smile graces Jaehyun’s face, softening the exhaustion that has been drawing lines around his eyes and mouth for days.

“He doesn’t seem to mind either,” Kun says.

Sicheng watches them for a moment more before relenting. “I’d really appreciate your help.”

“That's the spirit,” Kun hums, ushering him behind the counter to the back office. “We’ll figure this out in no time, you’ll see. Dejun, watch the shop!”

Helpless, Sicheng follows Kun into his workplace, but not without searching for Jaehyun again over his shoulder, a curious glance to assure himself. Jaehyun looks back.

It’s helpful. Devastatingly so.

Kun jots down a list of potential books and breweries that may offer solutions, if not the answer that Sicheng feels he needs. The problem is, he’s not sure what he’s asking yet.

Their differences don’t arise that afternoon. Sicheng swallows any shame he might feel about Kun being so kind when Sicheng has only ever questioned him. Maybe Johnny was right -- age and experience hold up against Sicheng’s bratty tendencies.

Jaehyun’s charms start wearing off in the early afternoon, but Sicheng emerges from Kun’s office to a sweeter smelling dead man. 

“I hope you don’t mind,” Dejun says, smiling just as gently as his master, “I made a few alterations.”

Sicheng can’t be upset, not when vanilla and rosepetal wafts off Jaehyun in soothing waves. On the train home, he finds two little canvas bags stuffed with ingredients tucked into his coat pockets, and sends a silent thanks to the apprentices. Kun is good for them. They’re already talented, his warm yet stern demeanor may actually be what they need to keep them focused on their crafts, particularly the two youngest.

He’s still got a lot of research to do, but the success of the day eases the tension brewing in his mind. If he lets himself walk a little closer to Jaehyun as they turn down the street toward home, they’re the only two who are around to see it.

  
  


Comfortable silence never lasts for long in Sicheng and Ten’s house.

The quiet evening, filled with hot tea and Jaehyun’s new albums playing low in the living room, is interrupted by Ten’s arrival home. The traitor.

Sicheng looks up from his laptop, which is balanced on one leg where he’s sunk low into the sofa. Taeyong’s bright laughter booms in the front hall, echoing through the rest of the house. 

Jaehyun looks up from the album he’s examining, settled on the floor with his own cup of tea, half drunk and still steaming.

They round the corner as one, bundled together like there’s something physical tying them together.

“This is our new roommate, Jaehyun. He’s dead.”

“Oh!” Taeyong turns his wide eyes to Jaehyun. They’re quickly joined by a wide smile. “It’s lovely to meet you, Jaehyun!”

Sicheng tries not to stare at the shy smile that spread over Jaehyun’s lips.

From the doorway, he hears Taeyong whisper, “Oh, he’s very handsome, isn’t he?”

Something boils in Sicheng’s chest.

“I’m sure you two have somewhere else to be,” Sicheng snaps.

“We’re going apple picking,” Ten says, nothing short of victorious. He clutches Taeyong to his side, fingers greedily taking hold in the sleeve of his long coat.

“In the morning,” Taeyong adds, “starting early to drive upstate.”

Sicheng rolls his eyes and looks down at his laptop again, even though he can’t read anything on the screen with the haze of his own irritation obscuring his vision. Ten always gets what he wants, doesn’t he? Leaving him and Jaehyun alone in this house is probably only the icing on the cake.

They leave again with a few cheerful comments to Jaehyun, who doesn’t respond, as expected. Up the stairs with two pairs of stomping feet. They’re like children, Sicheng thinks, noisy children.

Sicheng’s laptop chimes with a notification from his mailbox. He swipes his finger over the mousepad to open the tab where his email remains perpetually open to check the new message.

Subject line:  _ URGENT MEETING FOR THE MAGIC AND MAGICKED OF NEW YORK _

Important? Possibly. It could just be about the toad controversy Dejun had filled him in on in passing -- some poor sap’s prince charming added to an amateur’s brew. Unfortunate, but not unheard of.

He scans the recipients list before he begins to scroll through the contents.  _ Dead, death, dying, curse...resurrection? _

Jaehyun looks up from his new record player. When Sicheng doesn’t notice, he lifts the needle, letting silence stretch along them long enough for Sicheng’s ears to tingle from the absence of sound. Sicheng looks up, attention caught finally.

“What is it?”

Jaehyun’s gaze trails back to the doorway, where Ten and Taeyong had vanished only a few minutes before. Sicheng scans the room briefly for Jaehyun’s whiteboard, spots it on the bookshelf. With a grunt as he fights out of the plush couch cushions, Sicheng stands, crossing the room to collect it for him.

With his back turned, he almost doesn’t realize at first, who it is that’s speaking. The voice is so low, so faltering with disuse, yet somehow manages to fill the space without any effort at all. Sicheng hasn’t imagined Jaehyun’s voice before, but it makes sense – of course it couldn’t sound like anything else but this sweet depth that slips over Sicheng’s neck like silk.

“Apple picking?” 

He’s going to murder Ten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me: this isn't an ensemble fic  
also me: tries to mention as many members of nct and wayv as possible
> 
> thanks to everyone who was so kind about the first chapter!! sorry to make you wait so long. if you squint...maybe you can see...a plot?
> 
> thank you for reading <3


	3. III. hearing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, it's been a little while, hasn't it? if you've been waiting for an update, i am so appreciative of your patience. but stinky jaehyun is back!! with extra, extra plot and a re-title.
> 
> warning for blood and (semi-)graphic violence

Jaehyun likes to talk.

For the first few days of speaking, his voice is raspy. His words fade in and out without his permission. He gets tired easily and spends hours curled up in the cushy armchair in the living room, watching neighborhood joggers and the sunset. 

He has so much he wants to ask, to know.

“You’re doing great,” Taeyong praised him the first night, a total stranger putting his faith into Jaehyun as soon as he laid eyes on him. He took Jaehyun’s hands and squeezed, smiled patiently as Jaehyun tried to shape his response.

Ten poured honey generously into the tea he set on the table beside him. “Maybe this’ll help your throat, hm?”

“Thank you,” Jaehyun had whispered.

Sicheng stood in the doorway the whole time with his arms crossed over his chest.

Jaehyun wanted to ask him why he looked so wary of him, how he managed to build his walls so high for someone so young. 

He wanted to ask him so many things, he wanted to know it all.

He suspected that Sicheng would not answer, so he swallowed his questions with a sip of tea.

As the days drag on, Jaehyun realizes the more he speaks, the further Sicheng distances himself. Ten does what he can to answer Jaehyun’s questions without himself being a part of the magical community they both had fallen into, but Sicheng slips away to his bedroom and shuts the door, blocking them both out.

“Is it my fault?” Jaehyun asks Johnny at the café a few days after he first opens his mouth.

“No,” Johnny answers easily, without lifting his eyes from the inventory list bound to his clipboard. Jaehyun thinks that Johnny thinks the paper list makes him look more official, as if owning the café didn’t assure Johnny’s position. “Wait, what?”

Jaehyun glances around the café. Luckily, neither Sicheng nor Ten have gotten off work yet, so he can speak without fear of being overheard.

“Did I do something to Sicheng to make him dislike me?”

Johnny tears his attention away from the inventory sheet to stare at Jaehyun. His expression is flat, and it makes Jaehyun shift from foot to foot, wondering if he said something wrong again.

Suddenly, Johnny’s laugh bursts into the air. He claps a hand to Jaehyun’s shoulder. As he squeezes his arm, he shakes him a little. “Oh, Jae.”

Dazed, Jaehyun lets Johnny shake him around for a moment, trying to decipher the meaning behind Johnny’s continuous chuckles at his expense. “So…yes?”

_“No,” _Johnny stresses. “Absolutely not. Sicheng is a weird little puzzle, isn’t he? Just when you think you’ve figure it out, you find out you’re missing all these pieces.”

Jaehyun frowns behind his mask. A puzzle? Sicheng has never seemed that complex. He wears every emotion on his face, right there in the open, and is quick to help with anything, even when he’s preoccupied.

Jaehyun couldn’t have felt offended over Sicheng’s initial wariness if he’d tried. He, too, would have been uncomfortable if a dead person had shown up on his stoop.

He’d thought they had stepped past that, though, before he’d started to speak up. Now, Sicheng’s just disappeared, like a troubled ghost.

“I like him,” Jaehyun says.

Johnny’s smile grows sharp enough to rival Doyoung’s. “Oh, yeah?”

“He reminds me of someone I used to know,” Jaehyun says. “He’s nice.”

Johnny cackles again, shoving at Jaehyun’s shoulder as he lets go of him. Jaehyun rubs his arm, his frown only etching deeper into his face – not from the likelihood of a bruise forming in the shape of Johnny’s hand, but from the way Johnny seems to know something he doesn’t.

“I’m older than you, you know,” Jaehyun rasps out, “don’t be so rude.”

Johnny clicks his tongue behind his teeth, turning away from Jaehyun to duck back into the storage closet. He calls over his shoulder, “Only technically!”

Maybe Sicheng is just nervous about the meeting.

Jaehyun is, but his nerves are tired to his gap of knowledge in what to expect. The idea that Sicheng is flighty from having this knowledge only worsens the tightness in Jaehyun’s chest.

He rubs at it as he watches Ten run around the kitchen preparing his thermos of coffee, late for work again.

“Johnny will be here soon, I think,” Ten says around a mouthful of bagel. He pauses to cough into his palm, nearly choking, and Jaehyun half-rises from his seat at the table to help him, but Ten recovers quickly.

Eyes watering a little, Ten asks, “You’re okay on your own?”

All things considered, Ten is more likely to find himself in harm’s way when left to his own devices, but Jaehyun keeps his thoughts to himself. He nods.

Ten ruffles Jaehyun’s hair as he passes. He doesn’t wear his own mask around the house anymore, seemingly unbothered, or else used to, the smell of death.

“Have fun at your little magician’s meeting!” Ten calls, slamming the door behind him.

Silence falls over the brownstone like a gentle layer of snow. It gives Jaehyun chills.

Quiet reminds him of the grave, the perfect stillness of bones in a coffin. Sometimes Jaehyun can’t sleep at night, the house is so quiet. He’s grown grateful for the cacophony of sirens and other city noises that permeate the air in this sleepless city.

His other life had been noisy too. Twenty-six years ended by one sharp knife. When he fell in the streets, the city had not stopped to mourn him, but let him go, just as it let go all the others before him, carrying on under the weight of his blood in the street.

Jaehyun finds himself standing in front of the kitchen window, peering out at the street as he had his first night with Sicheng and Ten.

The air has grown so cold he can feel it reaching for him through the glass. Although there is no one on the street, he feels like someone is watching, waiting to drag him back into the ground.

Not for the first time, he wonders if it _is_ her who is to blame, the sweet and vicious witch he’d befriended in the factory, who’d shown him the side of the world he’d only heard about in stories – those stories meant to warn young children away from misbehavior. Witches, dragons, magic…

What had happened between them wasn’t his fault, but he still carries the guilt heavy on his shoulders, like her hands brushing over his skin as she leaped onto his back for a piggyback ride to the tenements, once the clock had chimed and workday finished.

Had she told anyone about him, after? Or had she left him in the dust as easily as all the others?

Whatever bad luck had followed him to the grave, he hopes it will not find Sicheng and Ten.

Or Johnny. Jaehyun shakes himself from his gloomy thoughts as he spots Johnny striding up to the house.

The key turns in the lock and a moment later Johnny sweeps into the house to Jaehyun’s side, carrying a takeout bag and coffee in one hand, and a garment bag in the other.

“Eat up, then get dressed. Sicheng will knock me out if I don’t get you to the Council meeting on time.”

Jaehyun pulls his mask down to his chin and takes the food Johnny brought for him. Like magic itself, Johnny’s presence has warmed the whole house again.

He catches Johnny looking at him strangely as he sits.

“What?” Jaehyun asks, voice all gravel and soot. He grimaces as the sound reaches his ears. It’s nothing like he remembers, but it will do for now.

And Johnny won’t judge him for it. The witch, now unzipping the garment bag and laying the clothes out over the bundles of herbs that cover one side of the table, shrugs. “Sometimes I forget what your whole face looks like. You’re really hot, Jaehyun.”

Jaehyun flushes, busying his mouth with a handful of fries to stop the smile that threatens to tear his face in two. Still, around the food, he can’t resist quipping, “Doyoung will be jealous.”

“Please,” Johnny tsks, “Doyoung would be more jealous of me than anything. Watch out, or he might try to swipe you up. He likes pretty things.”

_Full of yourself,_ Jaehyun wants to comment, although Johnny has the right to be. Since they’re in a rush, he focuses on eating instead.

“You should put your best foot forward in front of the Council,” Johnny says, smoothing out the long black slacks he brought for Jaehyun, paired with another deep burgundy turtleneck that will hide the scar on his throat. “They’re only scary when they feel like they need to be, so whatever happens…don’t make them feel like they need to be.”

It’s a strange instruction, but Jaehyun nods, silently promising he’ll try his best.

Once he dresses, Johnny ushers him out the door, winding a scarf around Jaehyun’s neck. While the pampering is nice, Jaehyun feels a little like a child being fussed over, and he waves Johnny’s hands away, following him down to the street.

He expects to turn down the road toward the station, but Johnny calls a cab instead. In no time, a testament to either Johnny’s know-how or his charms, a taxi rolls up to the curb.

“Aren’t we taking the train?”

Johnny shakes his head, stepping off the curb to open the backdoor of the cab for Jaehyun. He gestures for him to get in. “The Council always foots the bill for transportation costs. Why not ride in style?”

Jaehyun’s seen the luxurious cars that stop outside of _Nectar_ to pick up to-go orders. The inhabitants are always black-clad and shifty, smiling with mouths full of fangs and tongues as they collect fragrant, bubbly drinks from the counter. Johnny’s special concoctions for special kinds of people.

After witnessing the money exchanged in Johnny’s café, and the exorbitance of his clientele, Jaehyun’s not sure the yellow taxi on the street is as stylish as Johnny says.

The venue for the meeting is a building grand enough for a wedding. It’s old, although well-kept, and Jaehyun finds something comforting in the tall stained oak doors and trefoil windows.

It reminds him of the church his mother used to drag him to, full of hellfire. He wasn’t sure what to believe, back then. Now that he’s been dead, once, he’s even less certain.

But he can believe in Johnny, for now, who leads him through the heavy doors into the reception area. There are so many people milling about, Jaehyun can barely catch the full picture of any of them, their charms warding away his attention until he grows used to the thick presence of magic around the building. 

The apprentices find them first. Or, possibly, they find the apprentices.

Either way, Jaehyun and Johnny stand face to face with the three just inside the door, and Jaehyun is pleased to see the matching smiles that light up their faces.

“See, I said we’d see him again,” Kunhang says.

“Are you sure you didn’t just divine it to win five dollars?” Yangyang asks, already producing a folded bill from somewhere up his sleeve to slip into Kunhang’s palm.

Dejun breaks from their line to clasp Jaehyun’s hand, shaking it between both of his. “It’s good to see you. I brought you something, just in case, but Sicheng must be getting better at refining his recipes.”

Jaehyun’s cheeks flush pink. He’s grateful for the mask covering half his face but hopes that Dejun finds his smile in his expression regardless. “Sorry.”

Dejun shakes his head. “No apologies. The smell wasn’t too terrible anyway.”

“It’s been pretty awful,” Johnny chimes in. “But now you smell fresh as a daisy.”

Dejun ignores him in favor of stepping in close and tucking a small pouch into the inside pocket of Jaehyun’s coat, just above his heart. “Just in case.”

“Thank you,” Jaehyun says, pressing his palm over the pocket. The charmed pouch feels warm and tingly even through his clothes.

“Of course,” Dejun says, stepping back again. “Anything for a friend. We’ll see you around.”

The three disappear into the crowd again, like one three-headed beast, too entangled to part ways.

They decide Sicheng hasn’t arrived yet and find the refreshment table as they wait. It’s stocked with a broad assortment of snacks that look suspicious to Jaehyun’s all too human stomach. Even the punch, in a decorative glass bowl, bubbles and sparks.

“Maybe stay away from that,” Johnny says with a curl of his lip. He gets himself a Styrofoam cup of black tea, supposedly to keep his sensitive barista’s palette safe.

“Oh, wait here,” Johnny says after a survey of the crowd once more.

Johnny slides away, crossing over to his partner. Doyoung is caught in conversation with a gray-faced vampire whose teeth are long enough to draw blood from his own lips as he speaks.

Jaehyun watches them with his hands in the pockets of his coat, sorting through the various feelings that bloom in his chest as Doyoung turns to greet Johnny, linking their arms together.

Doyoung has always appeared gruff, but there’s a kindness in his face whenever he looks at his partner. Despite his eternal complaints about public affection, he still lets Johnny lean into his side, politely listening to the vampire in front of him.

Jaehyun has felt a similar look on himself before. He wonders, though, what it feels like when he’s a look that’s invited. He wonders what it may feel like to find the world in someone else’s gaze, and realize that it’s you.

He hears an instantly recognizable voice mutter, “Disgusting,” and for a moment believes that Sicheng must be talking about _him._

Eyes wide, Jaehyun turns to face him, but finds the witch’s focus on the same pair across the room.

“Oh,” Jaehyun says, “are you interested in him?”

Sicheng startles, nearly dropping the Styrofoam cup in his hand (_coffee, black, _Jaehyun notices). “What?”

“Johnny?” Jaehyun guesses.

Sicheng nearly chokes. The tips of his ears burn red. Jaehyun surveys him curiously. “No. And don’t ever let him hear you say something like that. He’ll eat me. Or you. Both of us.”

Jaehyun doesn’t bother asking who he means. Both Doyoung and Johnny are fierce, with a sharp glint in their eyes that speaks of darkness and hunger. The source of Doyoung’s is obvious. Johnny’s edge is better hidden behind his charming laugh and eagerness to feed Jaehyun’s addiction to French fries, but he wouldn’t dare cross either of them.

Despite Jaehyun’s renewed itch to uncover the contents of Sicheng’s head, he turns his attention to the young, college-aged man standing beside Doyoung.

Next to Doyoung, who is wrapped in his dark, velvet coat, pushing away Johnny’s face as he tries to kiss him, this man is clad in a yellow knit sweater. He sticks out in the crowd of impressive-looking magical beings, most adorned in menacing red velvets and black silk suits, some tailored to accommodate various kinds of tails, He chews on the edge of his nail as he looks all around.

When he catches Jaehyun’s gaze, they both startle. Him, probably from the violation of being stared at. Jaehyun, surprised by his amber, cat-like eyes.

The man lifts his hand, bitten thumb and all, and waves.

“Do you know him?” Sicheng asks.

Jaehyun frowns at the flatness in his tone, but shakes his head. He’s never seen him before.

Before either of them can question the greeting, Johnny pulls Doyoung toward them. The cat-eyed man trails after them, a timid puppy on a lead.

“Glad you could grace us with your presence,” Johnny hums as greeting to Sicheng.

Sicheng rolls his eyes instead of pointing out that he was already here. But the gentle ribbing prompts the desire to defend Sicheng to swell inside Jaehyun’s chest.

Luckily, before he finds his voice and spoils the mood, Johnny goes on.

“This is my cousin,” Johnny says, pulling the man in the yellow-sweater forward, “Mark.”

“A real demon,” Sicheng remarks. “Doyoung is usually a bit more hyperbolic.”

Jaehyun has never seen a demon before. Apparently, he wouldn’t have known what to look for. Without hooves or pointy, flaming wings, Mark looks like any other man he might pass on the street. Were it not for his eyes, with vertical slit pupils blown wide as he looks around, or the pointed tufts of hair on his head that resemble horns, he would escape detection altogether.

“He just doesn’t like that I’m not paying rent,” Mark says. “But it’s okay. I’d be upset, too, if I’d lived for a couple of centuries and still couldn’t handle my own finances.”

Despite Mark’s shy demeanor and gentle voice, he still speaks with the tongue of a serpent. Jaehyun likes him.

Apparently, Sicheng does, too.

Jaehyun frowns at the smile Sicheng offers Mark as he shakes his hand, both of them ignoring Doyoung’s indignant denials.

As they exchange further introductions, another figure sidles up to them.

“Glad to see you made it out of the house, Lee,” Donghyuck says, laying his palm over the back of Mark’s neck. “Thought you might just straight up die.”

Mark swats Donghyuck’s hand away. “It was just a cold.”

Donghyuck hums, his eyes lingering on the demon for a long moment. The cogs in his brain turn dutifully, and Jaehyun wonders that he could be thinking about hard enough to make the tips of his delicate, pointed ears wiggle.

Jaehyun bites hard on the inside of his cheek as Donghyuck looks at him, catching him staring. He smiles a little, hoping Donghyuck understands his sheepishness from the look in his eyes alone.

Donghyuck smiles back. “Jaehyun-ie. How’re your records?”

“Nice,” Jaehyun manages after a moment, clearing his throat.

Donghyuck’s grin widens. He rocks back on his heels as he looks around at them all, searching for similar expressions of pleasant surprise. His smile fades as he realizes there aren’t any. “Oh, come on, when was the public debut of your voice, then? You didn’t think to swing by and give us a listen?”

“Sorry,” Jaehyun says, amused.

It does little to wipe away Donghyuck’s pout. The pink flush of his ears and his blown-up cheeks full of air make him look like an oversized baby – cherubic, maybe, although Jaehyun doubts angels have such a spark of mischief.

Mark pats Donghyuck’s back consolingly.

“How do you know each other?” Sicheng asks.

Jaehyun blinks at the question, surprised by his inquisitiveness. Admittedly, he hasn’t known Sicheng long, but he had felt like he knew him well enough to understand that Sicheng is rarely curious about anything that doesn’t concern him. Like Jaehyun, for example.

Donghyuck answers before Mark can finish opening his mouth. “We have a mutual friend.”

Mark glances sideways at the fairy, quieted, but Jaehyun sees the tense line of his jaw as he grits his teeth. Donghyuck doesn’t react to Mark’s displeasure, simply smiling on.

“Jaehyun-ie,” Donghyuck says suddenly, leaning in close to him. He tilts his head nearly onto Jaehyun’s shoulder, and he inhales deeply. “You smell nice today.”

The attention shifts back to him, causing his stomach to turn. Despite Johnny’s comment earlier that day, Jaehyun still feels unsure of the truth in that. To himself, he still reeks of death. But maybe it’s all in his head now.

Around them, the crowd seems to stir, splitting as people find their ways to the folding chairs set up in front of a podium. The sound of their shuffle echoes up into the high ceilings, resounding.

“Maybe we should—“ Doyoung starts, only to be interrupted by another voice, one entirely unfamiliar.

“If it isn’t my favorite working couple,” the man hums as he sweeps into their little circle. His long silver hair is tied away from his face in a low ponytail, his cloaks long and fluttering. The melodrama of his appearance puts Doyoung’s to shame, though his fanged smile betrays him as a vampire just the same. “How is the café? Whipped up anything delicious recently, John? Helping out with some good brews, Sicheng?”

“We don’t work together often,” Sicheng says politely.

Jaehyun’s not sure how true that is, since Johnny’s number seems to be Sicheng’s number one speed-dial. This vampire seems to believe Sicheng even less that Jaehyun.

“Sure, sure,” he says before his bright eyes fall on Mark. _“Who_ are _you?”_

Mark startles, dropping his hand away from his mouth. The edge of his thumb is bitten raw again, and he shifts from foot to foot. The danger of his demonic energy seems faded under his raging nerves. “Um. Mark. I’m Johnny’s cousin.”

_“Mark,” _the man says, extending his hand, “I’m Yuta, the presiding Justice of the Council. I don’t think I saw a newly registered demon or I would’ve paid a visit!”

Mark takes his hand carefully, like it might bite him. “I haven’t registered with the Council, yet. Sorry.”

“Oh, it’s no problem,” Yuta hums, “we’ll get that all settled after the meeting. Ah, the meeting, yes, I’m needed, but—

“The rest of the cursed are sitting in the front, subject to today’s business.” Yuta turns his eyes on Jaehyun, looking reluctant to tear his attention away from the demon. “I’ll show you to your seat.”

Jaehyun doesn’t really want to leave this safe cluster of people. He opens his mouth to ask if he has to, when he feels Sicheng’s fingers curl into the crook of his elbow.

“He’s sitting with me. Maybe he can meet them next time.”

Yuta smiles, showing his fangs. His predatory grin is only so threatening because of his teeth, as the rest of his face betrays no malice. “Ah, pardon me. I should’ve known from your magic all over him that you’d adopted. What’s the custody agreement like? Does Mr. John get weekends?”

“He’s not a pet,” Sicheng grits out, but his protest gets lost under Johnny’s laughter.

Johnny claps a hand to Jaehyun’s shoulder. “We’re very amicable about it – come by the café some time, Jaehyun is working on some mean cappuccino skills.”

Yuta laughs as well. While Sicheng’s bristles have yet to be smoothed out, Yuta accepts Johnny’s charm. Again, Jaehyun wonders if it’s magic or charisma that work in Johnny’s favor. Maybe one day, he’ll be able to tell the difference.

“Of course,” Yuta says, acquiescing, “Jaehyun, then, I’ll see you soon. Once we settle all this business, either way, we’ll meet again.”

His words burrow into Jaehyun’s chest, dark and covered in thorns. All he can do is nod, pressed back the wave of chills that wash over his skin.

Yuta departs, heading toward the podium at the front of the waiting audience. Some people still mill about, grabbing more refreshments as they wait for the meeting to officially start.

“Thank the gods,” Donghyuck murmurs, “he was two seconds from bragging about being part-demon.”

“I don’t think that’s how vampirism works,” Mark whispers back.

Donghyuck can barely muffle his laughter, but luckily his face is already pressed into the crook of his elbow from his poor vampiric impersonation. “What? What do they even teach you in demon school?”

Mark blinks his cat eyes at him, lost. “Calculus?”

Sicheng tugs on Jaehyun’s elbow, leading him away from the cluster to a few empty seats in the back row, so he doesn’t hear the conclusion to the conversation, only managing to catch Donghyuck snort and mutter, “You’re obtuse.”

Sicheng drops into his seat, the metal folding chair creaking under his sudden weight. He flicks his gaze up to Jaehyun. “What are you still standing there for?”

Jaehyun settles beside him. The chairs aren’t spaced very far apart, and Sicheng’s leg is warm pressed to his.

While Yuta’s words ring in Jaehyun’s ears, Sicheng leans back, cool and relaxed.

“’Either way?’” Jaehyun asks, lowering his voice as a gavel hammers down to call the crowd to order.

Sicheng’s lips twist into a frown. He digs his nails into the rim of his cup, pulling tiny pieces of Styrofoam off, and drops the pieces into his black coffee. They float on the surface like sad snowflakes. “They won’t take you away.”

Although he could mean anything, Jaehyun hears, _I won’t let them. _

Jaehyun directs his attention to the front of the room. Between the heads of the people sitting in front of him, he can see about half of the front row, where his fellow undead sit.

It strikes him that there are so _many. _If this is her work, he doesn’t understand how she would have a list so long of people to curse. Maybe he was never as special as he thought.

Amid the mix of young and old undead, one stands out to him the most. He sits tall, fits in with the crowd well, but beside his stiff-backed peers, this boy whips his head around as he looks into the crowd, searching. For a moment, their eyes meet, and Jaehyun holds his breath, but the boy’s wide-eyed gaze drifts right over him, still seeking someone else’s face.

Something about his wide, pink mouth and short, dark hair is familiar. Something in the set of his broad shoulders, the open expression on his face. Jaehyun feels an itch in the back of his head, but can’t place the young man, can’t figure out where he may have seen him, dead or alive.

Yuta’s voice drifts back into Jaehyun’s ears.

“I know, I know! This is confusing for all of us, but as I said, the Council is conducting a thorough investigation. In the meantime, the question remains: what to do with our new friends? I’ve heard great suggestions from you all, but now we invite anyone who wants to speak to come to the microphone, and we’ll hold a vote after…sound fair?”

There’s a grumbling through the crowd, but the majority nod their heads, agreeing to the Council’s terms.

The first few people to the microphone express their desire to welcome the row of newcomers to the city. Despite the unfairness of being discussed like a thing rather than a person, Jaehyun even starts to relax as the suggestions remain neutral – being taken in and re-acclimated to society by community members, or put up in housing with Council funds to start their second lives.

Jaehyun isn’t keen on leaving Sicheng and Ten, but he would if they want him to. He just hopes they don’t, a fluttering hope that has him glancing at Sicheng between open mics to gauge his opinion. But the witch’s face betrays no expression.

“Hi, everyone,” the next person says sweetly, looking all around. They’re tiny, with blonde, wispy hair, and pointed ears tinged blue at the tip. “I just think, that when we say ‘undead,’ it sounds a lot like vampires. But, well, vampires die and live by the bite, don’t they? They don’t just wake up dead without any reason one day.”

There’s a slow murmur of agreement through the crowd.

“Well, I just think, what’s done is done, you know? What’s fair is fair. So, it’s a little unfair for people to start coming back. Like, they had their chance, you know? So maybe what we need to do is just balance things out again.”

Yuta adjusts his mic at the podium, a slight frown playing on his face. “What do you suggest? Please reach a conclusion.”

“I just mean, and I say this with the best of intentions of course, maybe they should just be put down again. Go back to the grave, you know.”

Yuta clears his throat. He looks wildly uncomfortable, but not as much as Jaehyun feels, his pulse loud in his ears. “You propose they should be killed?”

“They should go back to being dead, yes,” the fairy says. “For the good of balance.”

The audience is much quieter as they finish, but Jaehyun sees the shifting glances, the mouths tipped toward ears, whispering. He can’t help but feel doomed. He can’t help but feel good as dead again, despite the frantic beating of his heart.

Sicheng curls his fingers around Jaehyun’s wrist. His whole body is tense, coiled as if preparing to spring out of his seat and march them both out of there. Jaehyun hopes he will. He just wants to go home.

Before Sicheng can do anything, the room explodes in a burst of red light. Amid screams, the air in the center of the room implodes in a ball of pulsing crimson light.

Jaehyun closes his eyes, feels Sicheng’s touch ripped away from him as the crowd rushes.

He’s pushed out of his seat, only just managing to catch himself before he’s trampled underfoot as chaos descends on the meeting.

In the commotion, limbs flying, _people_ flying_, _an arm shoots out from the crowd. The hand twists its grip into Jaehyun’s shirt, tugging him to the side, and then – within seconds – an elbow collides with his chest, knocking him back. He falls victim to the surge of the crowd, and finds himself in the reception hall again, pressed up against the wall, and then pulled away again.

Jaehyun wheezes, stumbling. He reaches out to brace himself on anything close by, finds the edge of the refreshment table.

Jaehyun has been hit before – he’d been of the rough and tumble sort of crowd teenage days and he was no stranger to a fight. But something in the force of the blow was stronger than he’d ever encountered. Despite knowing that he is surrounded by magical, otherworldly beings, the blow still came as a surprise, shocking his brain with a jolt of pain.

Overriding his nerves is a pang of frantic energy, forcing him to ignore the aching tightness in his chest as he scans the room for Sicheng.

The energy in the center of the room is still pulsing red, and he can’t look at it directly, something in his core demanding that he avert his eyes. His humanity, part devil and angel, as she once said, couldn’t accept some things that were true, and would always turn away.

Along the edges of the strange thing, Jaehyun seeks for Sicheng in the crowd. He spots Doyoung’s fluttering black coat in the corner of his eye, across the meeting hall, but then it’s gone again, swept away.

Jaehyun pulls his mask down to his chin, calls out his name. His voice is far too weak to rise over the chaos.

Someone else bumps into him, reaching for another person. Their frantic motions knock him back again – the table falls on its side, Jaehyun along with it.

He inhales sharply through gritted teeth as he sits up in the sticky pink punch, spilled all over the floor along with the shattered glass of the punch bowl. His clothes are soaked. It takes him a moment to register that not all of the wetness on his hands is from the punch.

Shards of glass stick up from his palms. The sight of his own blood makes him woozy. He swallows hard, blinking fast to clear the dark spots crowding in on his vision. His mind races, trying to find logic and order in the rush around him. It stills when he sees Sicheng.

He’s wary to stand in the puddle of coffee and punch around him, and can’t hold himself steady with these hands full of glass. He calls to him again.

As if this really was the church Jaehyun remembered, and Sicheng’s name was a prayer, his call is answered.

Sicheng hauls him up off the ground, slipping a hand around his waist to keep their bodies pressed close together as they fight through the doors. Jaehyun wants to look back to find their friends, find the lost boy with the wide eyes and searching gaze, but Sicheng stares straight ahead, and Jaehyun follows him home.

Without a word, Sicheng directs Jaehyun to the bathroom. They can’t remove his sticky, soaked clothes without dragging his hands, still full of glass, through the fabric, so Jaehyun keeps his coat on as he sits on the edge of the sink.

Sicheng retrieves the first aid kit and steps between Jaehyun’s thighs. His lips purse as he concentrates on tweezing the broken glass from his skin.

They’ve never faced each other like this, and Jaehyun worries that the stench of him may be too strong. Sicheng doesn’t react to it, though. Instead, he frowns at Jaehyun’s nervous movement and digs his fingers into Jaehyun’s wrist, his grip tight as he wills him to still.

“Sorry,” Jaehyun whispers as Sicheng shoots a look up at him.

Sicheng bows his head to clean Jaehyun’s palms. Deft fingers move over his lifeline as he cleans the dirt and dried blood from Jaehyun’s skin.

Jaehyun takes the opportunity to study him, though he can see little more than the crown of his head and dark, fluttering eyelashes.

For the first time, Jaehyun notices the thin scratch along Sicheng’s temple, swollen and pink, tipped with a bead of blood. As the sting of alcohol touches Jaehyun’s scrapes, he reaches up to touch Sicheng’s cheek with gentle fingertips.

Sicheng startles but doesn’t pull away, lifting his face to meet Jaehyun’s gaze. This close, Sicheng doesn’t look so stern. This close, Sicheng’s eyes are laced with concern. Though Jaehyun still feels like a burden, he thinks he doesn’t mind being carried by him.

“You’re hurt,” Jaehyun says. His voice comes out a little smoother, a little more adjusted to use after this long, long day.

Sicheng’s lips part, but no words come out. He just breathes, watching Jaehyun watch him.

He’s so confusing, this witch. Jaehyun wants to know where he’s hiding his heart, kept safe away from his sleeve.

“I’ll let you play doctor in a minute, if that makes you feel better,” Sicheng says finally. He wraps his long fingers around Jaehyun’s wrist, pulling his hand down to finish dressing his wounds.

“What happened?”

Sicheng clicks his tongue behind his teeth. “Got caught in a fistfight. Unfortunate, right? My flight or fight response is definitely flight, I guess I know that for sure, but the terror didn’t discriminate, did it?”

Jaehyun frowns. Sicheng glances up and must catch his confusion.

“The fear?” Sicheng murmurs. “What did you feel?”

Jaehyun felt afraid in the chaos, certainly. But he wouldn’t have described it as terror. “Was it…the light?”

Sicheng’s expression smooths out. “Yeah. When you looked at it, how did it feel? Did you feel violent or like running away?”

Jaehyun shakes his head. “I didn’t look.”

“You didn’t?” Sicheng tsks again. “I couldn’t look a_way _until I heard—“

He cuts himself short. Jaehyun shakes his head again, confused.

“What, do you have an extra protection spell on you?” Sicheng asks. He’s joking, of course, but his question falls away into his usual grim tone. He steps back, looking over him as if seeing him for the first time. “Can you do magic?”

Jaehyun shakes his head, laying his palm over his chest again to feel his beating heart, an assurance of his life that he stops to feel every now and then. It’s warm under his bandaged palm. “I’m human.”

“Human,” Sicheng mutters as he packs away the first aid kit again, ignoring Jaehyun’s desire to press a Band-Aid over the cut on his temple. “Human.”

“I can’t do any of it,” Jaehyun says.

He can’t, even with all the inadvertent training she’d given him. No matter how many ingredients he fetched or orders he took for her, he doesn’t have the magic that pulses through Sicheng’s veins.

He knows all the best charms for protection, though, and racks his brain for an answer to his diverted attention at the Council meeting. None of the ingredients in Sicheng’s anti-stench charms would grant him that level of protection.

Under his hand, his heart pulses hot. Sicheng has already turned to leave the bathroom, lost in his head, when Jaehyun reaches out and grabs his arm.

Sicheng stops, waiting.

Jaehyun’s heart beats too fast, his racing mind unable to choose the words to explain. Wordless, he reaches into his coat and pulls out the little charmed pouch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please let me know what you think! comments are very appreciated, and i would love to discuss anything at the links below <3 thank you for reading <3
> 
> [twt](https://twitter.com/jpseudy)   
[cc](https://curiouscat.me/jpseudy)

**Author's Note:**

> do i have other shit to be doing? YES! but stinky jaehyun wins
> 
> my twt is @jpseudy
> 
> comments and kudos are very appreciated!!


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